


santa baby

by bettycooopers



Series: twelve days of barchie [6]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Christmas Presents, F/M, betty's baseline with polly sits at annoyed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:06:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28327260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettycooopers/pseuds/bettycooopers
Summary: He picks up the gift tag, which reads “To: Archie, From: Santa” and inspects it.  “Wow, Santa’s handwriting looks eerily like yours.”
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Betty Cooper
Series: twelve days of barchie [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066289
Comments: 5
Kudos: 59





	santa baby

**Author's Note:**

> merry christmas, and happy day six! 
> 
> fo'eva thank you's to the only person i will do facetime grwm's with, [becca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/packedyoursaturday), merry christmas beech! 🎅

Betty’s not great when it comes to surprises.

She doesn’t like them, much, if she’s being honest – she doesn’t like not knowing what’s going on, doesn’t like not being in control, doesn’t like to lack all the necessary details just in case something goes catastrophically wrong. She craves order, at heart, which is why she’s on the verge of a mild breakdown when her doctor, at a routine checkup, walks into the room and announces that she’s seven weeks pregnant. 

Her first thought is,  _ no, that can’t be right,  _ and her second is,  _ I can’t believe Archie’s not here. _ Then all her thoughts go sideways because she’s pregnant, and she doesn’t really know how to process that information, at all.

Even though they hadn’t necessarily been trying, they hadn’t  _ not  _ been trying, either. Archie had suggested they leave it up to chance, right now...and though it went against every fiber of her being, Betty had agreed. Chance seemed like the right way to go about it for them, in general – they’ve been married for a little over a year, and neither of them was opposed to having kids at this point...but they also didn’t mind having some more time to themselves, so...chance it was. 

Betty listens to the doctor in a fog, her heart pounding in her chest, her fingers pressed over her abdomen – holy shit there’s something  _ in there _ – and slowly makes her way up to the front desk to make her follow-up appointment. “Have a Merry Christmas, Mrs. Andrews,” the receptionist smiles as she hands her an appointment card, and Betty swallows. 

She’d completely forgotten that it was the day before Christmas Eve. She’d forgotten she had arms, and legs, and a mouth, too...but the idea that Christmas is in two days gives her an idea, one that sticks in her brain all the way out to the car, through the entire drive to the pharmacy, and then all the way home: she’s going to surprise Archie. 

She’s better at planning surprises than  _ being _ surprised, and Christmas has always kind of been their time...so telling him that he’s going to be a dad on Christmas feels like the right thing to do. She just has to manage to keep it from him for a day and a half...it shouldn’t be  _ that  _ difficult.

Turns out, keeping secrets from her husband isn’t as easy as she thought. 

Betty pretends to be asleep when Archie gets home from work, keeping her eyes closed as she listens to him quietly move around their apartment for a bit before he gets close to her. She lets out a slow breath when she feels him stooping in front of her, and stirs (probably, a little dramatically) when he pushes the hair out of her eyes. “Hi, sleepy,” he chuckles, and she blinks her eyes open, trying to make them look blearly as she fakes a yawn. 

“Hi,” she murmurs, blinking slowly.  _ He’s going to be a dad,  _ her brain screams, and she kind of wants to cry. She shuts her eyes again. 

“You feeling okay?” He slides his hand over her cheek, brushing his fingers against her skin. “It’s after six.”

“M’fine,” she says, trying to move out of his grasp and failing, leaning into his hand a bit instead. She opens her eyes for real this time, looking up at him and focusing on the scar between his eyebrows instead of on his actual eyes. “Just tired...that cold is really lingering.” 

Archie nods, pressing a kiss to her forehead and smiling at her softly. “I’m surprised it hasn’t hit me yet,” he chuckles, leaning down and kissing her lips lightly before he stands. “Maybe m’just immune to this one.”

Betty lets out a laugh that sounds fake to her own ears, but Archie doesn’t mention it. 

He heats up leftovers and brings them out to the living room, setting them out on the coffee table and sitting on the floor, his back pressed against the couch in front of her head. “You hungry?” Betty shakes her head, trying to ignore the way the smell of the leftover chicken is making her want to puke, then settles her chin on his shoulder.

She eggs him on so he’ll tell her about work, anything to fill the silence so her brain doesn’t force her to scream,  _ “I’m pregnant, by the way,” _ or something equally ridiculous. She must be thinking too hard, because she hears Archie’s voice float into her ears and it sounds concerned. “...baby,” he says, and she flinches.

“What baby?” Betty furrows her brow. She’d missed the beginning of his sentence, and she wanted to double back...but could he possibly be talking about  _ that  _ baby?

“...I said,  _ you here with me, baby,  _ Betts.  _ You’re  _ baby,” he chuckles, turning and raising his brow at her. “You sure you’re alright?”

Betty tries not to sigh and bites on the inside of her cheek. She heads up to bed after a little while, because her brain is just working too hard against her.

In the middle of the night, she wakes up with her hand on her stomach, Archie’s hand covering hers, and she feels tears in her eyes almost immediately.  _ Fuck _ . She sniffles loudly and tries to keep quiet, but she feels Archie stir and lets out a soft groan – she’s now  _ actually  _ tired, and she wants to tell him more than ever, and the combination of those two things...doesn’t seem like a good mixture. “What’s the matter,” she hears Archie’s sleepy, husky voice in her ear and her heart throbs. 

“Nothing,” she murmurs, but it sounds wet.

“Betty,” he breathes, and she hears him suck in a long breath, clearly trying to wake himself up. “You’re crying.”

“Bad dream,” she shakes her head, flipping her hand over on her stomach and lacing her fingers with his, “not a big deal, I swear.”

He presses his thumb over her wedding band and shakes his head against her neck. “You promise? I don’t have any monsters to kill?”

Betty nearly rolls herself over and cries into his shirt, nearly screams,  _ “no, but soon enough, Daddy,”  _ -– but instead, she squeezes his hand again and lets out a soft, tearful hum. “Promise,” she whispers, “everything’s fine, Arch.”

Archie nods and goes back to sleep, while Betty lays awake for the rest of the night in agony.

On Christmas Eve, Betty spends the day at her mom’s – which she figured would be a welcome distraction, with all the baking and wrapping they need to get done – but all she can think about is how next year, they’re going to have a  _ baby  _ during Christmas. 

Polly calls her on it, somehow. Betty’s sitting on the living room floor with a gift for Dagwood half wrapped in front of her when Polly snaps her fingers. “You’re  _ pregnant, _ ” she says, a huge grin on her face. Betty gapes at her. She kind of hates her sister, sometimes. 

“How,” Betty stammers, raising her brows. “How could you possibly  _ know  _ that?” 

“You’ve been staring fondly at a  _ toy _ for like,” Polly shrugs, “three minutes, minimum. You’re  _ pregnant?” _ Polly presses her hand to her mouth, “When did you find out? Does Archie know? When are you due?”

Betty rolls her eyes and continues wrapping the box. “I never said I was,” she mumbles, smacking a bow on the top of the gift and sliding it under the tree. “But if I were,” she levels Polly with a glare, “I’d want to  _ tell my husband  _ before you go around running your mouth about it.”

Polly crosses her arms over her chest. “So he doesn’t know yet?”

“Doesn’t know  _ what,” _ Betty snaps, grabbing another of Dagwood’s gifts and sizing the paper accordingly, “that you think I’m pregnant? I don’t think I need to tell him that.”

Polly hums, circling her sister and tapping her fingers to her chin. “You’re going to do some cheesy Christmas thing, aren’t you? God, you two are sappy.” She lets out a little laugh, so Betty doesn’t feel bad when she just happens to stretch out her leg – her muscles are stiff, okay? She’s pregnant, after all – and Polly trips over it, stumbling a little.

Christmas Eve, even with the heightened awareness Betty has for basically everything that comes out of Polly’s mouth, goes by rather smoothly. When they get back in the car to drive home, Archie slides his hand over Betty’s leg and gives it a light squeeze. “Your mom asked me when we’re going to start giving her  _ proper grandchildren,”  _ Archie chuckles, shaking his head. Betty nearly chokes on a sip of water, letting out a cough. “I told her she already has proper grandchildren.”

“God,” Betty says, her voice hoarse, “why would she  _ ask  _ you that?”

Archie laughs, shrugging and brushing his thumb over her knee. “Maybe because asking you’s always a dead end, for her,” he shrugs. “She knows I’ll give her a real answer.”

“Did you?” Betty can’t help herself. She swallows, peeking over at him. 

“I told her it’ll happen when it happens,” he smiles. “Chance, right?” Betty feels her face soften and she smiles, her eyes burning. She has to force herself not to tell him to pull over so she can crawl in his lap and tell him it’s happening _ now.  _

She wakes up at four on Christmas morning and tries to will herself to go back to sleep. She realizes, with a flutter in her chest, that she’ll probably be waking up around now on Christmas morning for the next several  _ years,  _ so she should try to savor the sleep now, but once that’s in her brain...it’s stuck. She rolls over to Archie, pressing herself into his back and wrapping her arms around him gently, sliding her fingers along his skin. “Merry Christmas,” she breathes against his skin, and she feels him stir. 

“S’still dark out,” Archie whines, “too early, baby.”

“No,” she kisses his shoulder, “s’just the right time, I think. I have presents for you.”

“Are they gonna go somewhere when the sun comes up?” 

Betty laughs, shaking her head. “I’m too excited to sleep,” she whispers, “I have a really good one, I think.”

“New car?” She shakes her head. “Then it can wait another three hours.” Betty sighs, scratching her nails along his chest. “You really want me to get up now?”

Betty sighs, nodding but pouting against his back. “You can sleep,” she says, in a voice that they both know means he should probably just do what she says, “if you want.”

Archie sighs out a long breath and she watches as he stretches a bit, then sits himself up, blinking at her in the dark. “You  _ really  _ want to get up  _ now,  _ babe. You’re sure?” Betty grins at him, sitting up and pulling his face closer to her, kissing him gently.

“I’m sure,” she mumbles against his mouth. She kisses him once more, then slides out of bed and makes her way towards their bathroom, turning back to grin at him. “Trust me, it’ll be worth it.”

She brushes her teeth and fusses with her hair in the mirror a little, her heart beating hard in her chest as she makes her way back into the bedroom, laughing at Archie, who still hasn’t moved. “You alright, babe?”

“I’m just,” he scrubs his hand over his face. “I’m just trying to figure out what exactly is worth getting up at four in the morning for, you know?” Betty rolls her eyes and plants her hand on her hip. “I mean, if you got me  _ sex in the living room, _ we...we could just stay here for that, and,” he looks up at her and she raises a brow. 

“Are you done?” Archie frowns as Betty rolls her eyes, holding out her hand, “‘cause if you’re done, we could go downstairs and you could solve this mystery right now.”

She laughs as they make their way down the stairs, Archie leaning into her side and yawning against her neck. She hopes he’s at least awake enough to understand the news. They sit down on the couch and she snuggles into his side, placing a small box in his lap and tapping her finger against the top. “Merry Christmas,” she murmurs, leaning up and kissing his cheek.

Archie yawns, then leans down to kiss her lips, “Merry Christmas,” he says against them, then pulls back and looks down at the box. He picks up the gift tag, which reads “To: Archie, From: Santa” and inspects it, letting out a low chuckle. “Wow, Santa’s handwriting looks eerily like yours, Betts.” Betty pinches his arm, her heart beating harder than she thinks is probably healthy, and jiggles her foot in anticipation.

In the glow of the Christmas lights, she watches as Archie unwraps the box and pulls out a positive pregnancy test, a sonogram, and a small slip of paper that reads, “Santa’s Newest Helper, Coming Next August” all in one hand. He furrows his brow, dropping everything into his lap and then picking up the test, again, staring at it. Betty keeps her eyes on him, biting on the inside of her cheek.

“You’re,” he looks down at her, his cheeks red, “you’re...we’re,” he raises his brows, holding up the test and grinning at her. “A baby?”

Betty takes the test out of his hand, putting it back in the box along with the sonogram and the note, tossing them onto the couch as she slips into his lap, lacing his fingers with her own. She pulls their hands down to her flat stomach and meets his gaze. “We’re having a baby, Arch,” she grins, and she feels his free hand slip around her and pull her tightly against him. 

He leans in, kissing her slowly, and she can feel that there are tears on his cheeks. “We’re gonna be parents?” Betty nods, sliding her free hand into his hair. “Holy shit.”

“Very eloquent, babe,” she grins, brushing her lips over his. “Not kid-friendly language, if you ask me.” He laughs into the kiss, but pulls her in deeper, keeping her close and regulating his breathing the best he can.

“So _this_ is why you’ve been so cagey,” he chuckles after a few moments, his face pressed to hers.

Betty lets out a breathy laugh. “You know I don’t like surprises,” she pouts her lip out slightly, “even when it comes to presents.”

He pulls back from kissing her just long enough to mumble, “Best Christmas gift ever,” against her mouth and brush his thumb over her stomach.

**Author's Note:**

> you can follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bettycooopers) or [tumblr](https://bettycooopers.tumblr.com) if you feel like watching me break down in real time!


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